Taking your web design firm to the next level
A small business owner wonders where his marketing strategy should go next.
Alex Diaz, Houston, Texas
I run a website design firm, www.toptechexperts.com. We offer a unique, affordable and complete website design package catered to small businesses. We want to grow and get more clients. My question: Should I invest more money in promotion and advertising, or hire some salespeople to reach out to new customers? I’m a great salesperson, but my time is limited, between designing and managing. Any advice?
By Kathleen Ryan O’Connor, Fortune Small Business Contributor
Dear Alex: Your question resonated with several folks in the website design world who have found themselves in a similar position: I’m doing great work, but what’s the best way to let the world know?
There isn’t a one-size-fits all answer
Damian Bazadona of Situation Marketing in New York City grew his web design company from one to thirty-five people in a couple of years. How? By recognizing that web design is essentially a people business, he says.
You are selling your creativity, not just a bundle of technical options. That means it will be hard to find anyone who can match your passion when pitching. He thinks your time and money would be well spent promoting and advertising, not training a salesperson likely unfamiliar with your exact vision. “I’d rather invest time in doing things to get clients to tell their friends,” Bazadona says. ”It’s all word of mouth.” He also recommends focusing on retention and getting more work from existing clients. “If you treat them great, they are going to find more money to spend with you.”
Spend time, define your market
Are you trying to convince local merchants with no existing web presence to use your firm to build a no-frills site? Then maybe hiring a salesperson or two doing cold calls might actually make sense. But if your product is more sophisticated, focusing on higher-level customer contact is likely to work better.
Dana E. Nybo, academic director of web design and interactive media at the Art Institutes International Minnesota wonders, ”What is his strength? He may be a great salesman, but if he’s a great designer and that’s where his heart lies, then hire a salesperson.”
Of course, all that business is worthless unless you have someone in the firm to follow through. Nybo says that Douglas Brull, a colleague at the institute, is going through the same type of issue. Brull, faculty for web design and interactive media department at the Institute, helped launch the web design firm Grandpa-George one year ago, but they are growing faster than anticipated, with three partners, four interns and two contractors.
He wonders if they should be going after specific clients or launching a more wholesale advertising campaign. “We are going back and forth on that,” Brull says.
For now they are trying to use scarce dollars creatively for targeted marketing and for building a community around the Grandpa-George aesthetic. He points out that money is no longer the sole currency for visibility. Viral marketing can build a brand without a fat corporate budget. The beta launch of their new site a few weeks ago was viewed in 46 countries and garnered “amazingly positive” feedback. “We’re investing in ourselves,” Brull says. “We are trying to use what we have the most of and that’s ideas and talent.”
Give us your advice: Check out recent “Ask & Answer” questions.
Related links:
Setting the budget for your Web site
How to stand out on the Internet
Building your first business Web site
From Jeffrey Smith, Chicago IL Another alternative you may wish to consider is search engine optimization. Due to the fact that you are essentially a web based business, or at least dependent on the web (to create web sites). It only stands to reason that you could hone your pitch to a very specific audience online and engage them with SEO.
You could create a beautiful portfolio, create a series of landing pages and target them for specific keywords for local and then regional and national terms. The beauty of starting local is, you can always get more face time with clients from setting up meetings, and it may well in fact be a hidden gem in your overall marketing arsenal.
I am not suggesting to rely too heavily on any one marketing method, but at least it is another avenue to get the word out (since a mere fraction of prospects use the yellow pages). These days, it really boils down to Google and ranking above the fold to get conversion.
We have never had to advertise with our SEO business, organic traffic is truly priceless if you have what the searcher is looking for. It boils down to standing in front of the right type of traffic through having the right on page factors as well as a compelling offer once the traffic arrives.
From Mike Holland, Atlanta, GA Greetings – I started Net-Flow Solutions – an IT Managed Services & Consulting company in 2005. I originally faced the same situation you are currently asking about – How to Grow the Company? very early on. Currently, we have seen three years of constant 100%+ growth across the board. Currently, we have rack space in two data centers which allows us to offer redundant hosted Exchange, Online Backup, SharePoint, Managed Services, and Anti-Spam Services. We have also built out two call centers that provide redundant 24/7 support for our Managed Service clients. So as you can see, we have grown extensively over a 2.5-3 year period.
My approach to growing the business was honestly through a series of trials and errors, but by doing so gained vital experience. I will give to items of advice – The first is I learned to have the infrastructure in place to grow – the data center, the virtual servers, the call centers. Secondly, mix your sales efforts – one track won't always lead to success.
The important part was learning how to create the perfect mix for sales – online advertising, hiring sales managers, partnerships, etc. After spending thousands on pay-per-clicks and other online/print forms of advertising, I dropped it. I brought in an outside sales manager and also an inside sales manager. This was a great move on my part, because I could not focus on every item that needed to be done in a day. Building a quote, looking up prices, meeting with current clients, meeting with potential clients, overseeing the workflow of projects, etc. Just to much for one person. So the inside and outside guys work together building teh quotes with me reviewing their quotes before the client see them. It is a great system. Then I mentioned partnerships, this is our true secret to success. Everything that we do/offer can be re-branded. I created a channel program, where others in the IT arena can resell our services as if they are their own. From the Managed Services to our Online Backup Solution – everything can be rebranded for a partner to resell. We started this program the first of the year with one partner on trial, today we have 7 channel partners across the US – 35% of the gross revenues come from these channel partners. If you think about it, I don't have 2 or 3 sales managers and a few inside sales representatives. I actually have close to 50 sellng services of Net-Flow Solutions.
Best Regards
Mike Holland
CEO
Net-Flow Solutions
http://www.net-flowsolutions.com
From Murali, Trivandrum, India In my personnel opinion Sales Person is more helpful in earning business than advertising. In our city we four friends were running a small website designing firm.I was doing marketing and sales, one manager and two web designers. We were doing good. In my marketing experience I can say sales person is more effective than advertising. The things we were doing is regular follow up, retaining the old customers(updation of website etc) were done free of cost.Even I was able to get some software orders. we appointed software programmers and the running cost became very high than we expected.And we were unable to execute the order in time.
-
Detroit's churches are plowing millions into redeveloping local housing and businesses. More -
Winepod attracted a wait list of eager buyers and millions from investors. Then came the recession. More -
As other major banks withdrew, Wells Fargo stepped up its small business lending. More -
Designer Chuck Comeau set up his manufacturing in Plainville -- 240 miles away from a major airport. More -
As staffs shrink, business owners are taking on support duties they haven't had to handle in years. More
Alex;
It's easier to hire high quality designers than it is to find sales people who can connect with your customers with the passion and experience that you bring. In a small agency the owner needs to be spending 50% of their time selling. Only you can convince the clients that your team understands their challenges and has the right skills to meet them.
Another possibility is to Raise your prices. When you charge more you will communicate to clients that you are very confident that they will receive a value for your services. This allows you to make more money, while serving the same number of clients. You get to stay focused, do great work and grow your firm.
I work with many firms that experience these challenges and I'm happy to talk further (www.anchoradvisors.com)
Brad